Two Cities in Iowa Were Named the Happiest in the U.S.

If you live in the cities of Des Moines or Cedar Rapids, you better put a smile on your face! Both cities were named on WalletHub's list of the happiest cities in the United States.

Out of the over 180 U.S. cities that WalletHub looked at, Des Moines came in at number 24 and Cedar Rapids at 28. So what exactly makes a city "happy?" The study states:

"We examined each city based on 28 key indicators of happiness, ranging from depression rate to income-growth rate to average leisure time spent per day."

Those 28 "key indicators" were broken down into three categories: emotional & physical well-being, income & employment, and community & environment. Cedar Rapids was ranked 46th for emotional & physical well-being, 41st for income & employments, and 39th for community & environment.

Just looking at the rest of the rankings, it seems like most MAJOR cities ranked lower on the happy scale than some of the smaller ones. For example, Detroit, Cleveland, and St. Louis all came in towards the bottom of the list. The top three cities are Fremont, California; Bismark, North Dakota; and San Jose, California.